How to Choose the Right Backup Plan

By
PC Mag ME TeamJan. 10, 2017, 5 p.m.

You need a plan for backing up your photos, your work files, and all your other data. Whether it's a quick-and-dirty cheap solution or a more costly but highly redundant strategy, we've got you covered.

There are two kinds of people: Those who back up their data and those who haven't lost anything yet. I'll never get tired of that joke, because it's painfully true. Losing your files can be heartbreaking, career-ruining, and expensive if you try to recover them with the help of an expert. Backing them up yourself is a preventative measure that avoids all those issues. While backing up your data sounds like a tedious chore, it doesn't have to be. There's a backup solution for every kind of person—the lazy, the diligent, and people somewhere in between.

Take me, for example. I haven't gone to every possible length to make sure I have a watertight plan, but I've covered my bases by making sure my most important computer files, such as photos and current work documents, are saved and synced with a cloud storage service. My phone contacts are saved to iCloud Drive, Google Contacts, or both. If any one of my computers or phones were to crash, get stolen, or burn up in a fire, I'd be able to put the pieces of my digital life back together again, although it wouldn't be fun and it would take some time and effort. My backup plan isn't ideal, but it's better than nothing and good enough for the time being.

That's my take on backing up: Something is better than nothing.

The much more ambitious among us (or those who have been burned by data loss in the past) might want a thorough plan that makes it easy and nearly effortless to restore all their data at once. That kind of plan would probably involve making both an online backup, and using local backup software to save everything to a dedicated hard drive. Such plans cost more to maintain and take a little extra time to set up. Many people would rather take their chances with a solution that's easier to implement but factors in a little more risk.

And that's okay! You don't have to be perfect to be better off than you are now.

Minimal Backup

Can you cover your ass with minimal effort and no expenditure? The answer is, "Yes, but your plan will have some weaknesses."

You don't have to pick just one. It's entirely possible to have accounts with all of these services.

If you don't want to spend any money, the way to do it is to spread your data out by using one service for a particular kind of file, such as backing up mobile photos only to Dropbox but using Google Drive or OneDrive exclusively for work files. That way, you're less likely to hit that ceiling on the free storage limit. (Another good choice for photo backup is Flickr, which allows 1TB of full-resolution photo backup for free.)

What makes these services excellent for lazy people is that they take minutes to set up and really no time at all to maintain. They're set-and-forget products. You install a piece of software and either select which files you want to back up or drag your chosen files and folders into a new folder the service created for you. That's it.

From there on out, you let the apps do their thing in the background. If your machine crashes, gets stolen, or falls off a boat and sinks to the bottom of a lake, you can go to the website of the service you're using, log in, and get your files back.

Of course, if you spread your files out among a few different services, it will take longer to restore them than if you had all your data backed up to one place. Plus, there's always a chance that a catastrophe could obliterate the company storing your data. Like I said, this plan has holes. But they may be holes you're willing to tolerate.

Mid-Level Backup

If you're willing to do just a little more work or pay a little bit of money, you can get a lot more value out of your backup plan. A good mid-level effort backup plan would be to pay for ample storage in one online backup service or online syncing service so that all your files are consolidated into one place.

When you consolidate all your files and back them up to one place, you can restore all your files to a new laptop and phone later in one fell swoop, in case the devices crash or you lose them over the edge of an ice cavern while mountaineering in Nepal. You don't have to hunt around to different services to reclaim your data the way a cheapskate who is only using free services would.

For this kind of backup, you will end up paying at least a little bit of money to get enough storage. A rough estimate is less than $100 per year.

One option that retains all the benefits of file-syncing is to simply pay for more storage with the file-syncing service of your choice. Or you could use an online backup service, such as Crashplan or SOS Online. Both are PCMag Editors' Choices.

The difference between file-syncing services and online backup programs is that the first focuses on syncing as its primary job, while the second emphasizes backup and restore issues. A file-syncing service makes the most recent version of your files available to you across multiple devices, and by default it provides a backup. But it doesn't typically provide truly robust tools for restoring your files in the case of a data loss. Online backup services, however, have a lot more tools for choosing which files you want to back up and how often, as well as tools for easily and quickly restoring your files.

The weakness in this plan is that you are trusting your files to one company. If the company hosting your files goes kablooey, what do you do then? How do you create a stopgap for that problem? Simple: You back up all your files to more than one place, which is more of a perfectionist's approach.

High-End Backup

Perfectionists will tell you the three rules of backup are redundancy, redundancy, and redundancy. So, let's talk about making three copies of your files.

Your first copy will be on your devices. Your second copy is with an online backup service or file-syncing service. The third copy will be backed up to a hard drive. Several online backup providers also offer software that saves your data to local storage for this kind of redundancy. But a true perfectionist will want to have a local copy of their data, too.

Why? In addition to creating a third copy of your files, a hard drive also makes it easier and faster to get your files back. You don't need to rely on having an Internet connection, and you aren't waiting for hours while files download from the cloud to your computer. You'll want to use local backup software for this, and PCMag's current Editors' Choice in this field are Acronis True Image and StorageCraft ShadowProtect 5 Desktop.

How much will this kind of plan cost? You should plan to pay around $100 a year for the online service, around $100 to $200 for a good quality hard drive (though you can also easily spend thousands of dollars on something much grander), and $50 to $100 for the backup software. A great option that doesn't break the bank is the 4TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive.

Does this all sound like too much work and expense to you? That's fine. This level of protection isn't for everyone.

Get Started Today

The important thing isn't having a perfect backup plan, it's having a backup plan at all. Of course, it helps to have the right backup plan for your budget, your willingness to actually carry out the plan, and your tolerance of risk. And there's no shame in going with the quick-and-dirty minimal option, because in the case of backup, anything really is better than nothing. The only truly bad plan is putting off getting started—because you will eventually suffer a crash, a theft, or a disaster. It's only a matter of time.